November 21, 2015. Despite the howling winds that blew through town overnight, I slept well, waking up only a couple of times when I heard Dad coughing. I got up early and woke Dad and Michell shortly after 4:00 A.M. Dad woke up slowly and had another difficult morning. I administered another dose of Imodium in his G-tube, along with his morning dose of Midodrine, which would help raise his blood pressure during dialysis. Michell and I also had the fun task of collecting a stool specimen that we had to drop off at the dialysis center.
When Michell and Dad were picked up by the EMS wheelchair van service, Stan and I drove to the dialysis center. I had been very upset that they had removed 2,500 ml from Dad on Thursday, and I intended to express my concern to the charge nurse. For each 1,000 ml removed, a dialysis patient loses 1 kg. After I had explained Dad’s situation, she said that they would just clean his blood today and not remove any fluid from him.
I remained at the dialysis center with Dad until he was weighed, which would determine his wet weight. Instead of gaining weight since his last session, which is what typically happens with dialysis patients, he had lost weight. He now weighed 128 pounds, five pounds less than his dry weight on Friday. Although two dietitians were now monitoring his nutrition, I was very concerned about his weight. I know that Michell was concerned when she learned how much the nurse planned to remove, she didn’t feel that she was qualified or entitled to question their judgment.
After I saw Dad weighed, Stan and I left Dad and Michell at the dialysis center so that we could run several errands before Dad returned home. Everything worked in our favor, and we were home by 10:30 A.M. As it turned out, Stan and I didn’t have to rush. Dad and Michell had to wait for the van and didn’t return home until after noon.
As soon as he got home, I administered Dad’s trach care and meds. Following dialysis, Dad usually was ready for a nap, but not today. During the storm last night, we had wind gusts up to 40 MPH that ushered in a cold front, and we lost a roof shingle. As soon as I was finished with Dad, he was ready to discuss with Stan how to replace the shingle.
Shortly before 2:00 P.M., Dad took a long nap on the couch while we were in the living room because he didn’t want to be away from us. I think that he thought that sleeping on the couch would ensure that he didn’t miss happy hour, but he slept through it. Dozing on the couch might not seem like a big deal, but it was another first for him in his post-hospital life. We had to rely on the oxygen tank and trach bib because we couldn’t bring the oxygen concentrator and nebulizer to the living room, but he was able to receive Nepro during his nap. He slept for about four hours, and we woke him when we finished dinner.
We played cards again, and Stan was tonight’s winner. Shortly after 8:30 P.M., we started our bedtime routine, and by 9:10 P.M., I was heading upstairs. I had been concerned that, after sleeping for so many hours today, Dad wouldn’t be able to sleep, but he was snoozing before I left the room. Since lunchtime, I had been feeling like I was coming down with a cold, so I took some Nyquil before bed. Even if it didn’t help fend off a cold, it would help me sleep.
At 10:30 P.M., the baby monitor station in our room started alarming. After quickly putting on my glasses, I could read the message on the display that indicated that our station was unlinked from the base station. As I tried to turn on the light, I discovered that the power was out again, which was why the monitor was unlinked. I called the power company, whose phone number was now stored on my iPhone, and listened to the recorded message stating that the power would be restored by12:30 A.M. I went downstairs and checked on Dad and Michell. Although the baby monitor alarm was also sounding in their room, it was the silence of the oxygen concentrator that first woke Michell. When I entered the room, she was setting up an oxygen tank next to Dad’s bed. I called the power company again, and the recording had been changed and now stated that they didn’t know when the power would be restored. The power came back on at 3:30 A.M. as Michell was replacing Dad’s empty oxygen tank.
November 22. After the interrupted night’s sleep, I finally woke up when I heard Michell telling Dad that it was 6:00 A.M. When I entered the master bedroom, my first thought was that Dad seemed as sleepy as I felt. However, his movement seemed unnaturally slow. Right after he finished washing his face and brushing his teeth, Michell checked his oxygen saturation level, and it was 74%, a severely low level. I then noticed that I didn’t hear the soft hissing sound from the oxygen tank that I heard when the oxygen was flowing. When I checked the tank, the valve was in was in the off position, which surprised Michell. She was sure that it had been on and thought that Dad must have leaned against the key and turned it off. We quickly put him back on the bed, removed his speaking valve and gave him unobstructed oxygen from the concentrator and nebulizer. After 30 minutes, I still wasn’t happy with his oxygen levels, so to rule out any chance of an obstructed airway, I changed out his trach. For the past couple of weeks, we had been slowly reducing the amount of oxygen that we administered from the oxygen tanks and his oxygen saturation levels had remained high. I now decided to increase his oxygen level back to two liters, which is where it was when he was discharged from the CCH almost two months ago.
By 8:00 A.M., Dad was back in the wheelchair and was reading the Sunday newspaper. When Mom and I left for church, he and Stan were playing cribbage. After a couple of games of cribbage, Dad wanted to lie down and rest. According to Michell, he fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. Usually, he liked for us to wake him before Stan left for Houston, but today he asked that we let him sleep.
We finally woke Dad and helped him out of bed shortly after 3:00 P.M. He was up for the rest of the evening, and Michell was able to get him to run through some of his swallow-therapy exercises. Dad rested in his room again while we ate dinner, and he was ready to play cards when we were finished eating. By 8:20 P.M., we were finished with cards and starting our nighttime routine. Less than 25 minutes later, we had finished administering the meds and trach care, and Dad was sound asleep.
November 23. Dad was very slow in waking up this morning. When I heard him and Michell talking, I took a break from work to administer his morning meds and trach care. Tracy, one of our RNs, called around 9:00 A.M.to see if we could be her first stop this morning. I was very low on the Mepilex dressings that American HomePatient didn’t provide and asked Tracy if she could bring me a few to tide me over until I could order more from Amazon. She said that she would stop by the office and pick up a couple for me. I was very fond of Tracy. She was a wonderful nurse and the mother of a special needs child. She was one of my favorite nurses and a very caring person. She arrived at my parents’ home at 10:00 A.M. with my requested dressing in hand. After her brief examination of Dad, she said that his bed sore was practically healed. With the way that Dad had been feeling, I didn’t want to take him back to the wound care doctor, which would most likely take the entire afternoon. She said that I could safely cancel his appointment with wound care today. Also, she didn’t think that I would need any more of the expensive Mepilex dressings. I happily accepted the good news and canceled the appointment with the doctor and the EMS wheelchair van service.
While Tracy was visiting, Dad spent the entire time either sitting or lying on the bed, so she didn’t see how weak he had become. Shortly before Tracy arrived, Michell had had to hold up Dad to keep him from falling when he was trying to get dressed. I hoped that we would hear something soon from Dr. Pfanner’s office.
I contacted Kathleen, the physical therapist, to see if she could come over today to take care of Dad’s 60-day assessment for Medicare. As part of the assessment, the Scott & White Home Care providers would recommend an additional 60 days of home care. Unfortunately, because the health care providers can’t perform their assessments more than five days before the assessment due date, which was this coming Saturday, the earliest that she could stop by would be Tuesday, which was a dialysis day. According to Kathleen, the therapists and the nurse would arrive on Wednesday to perform their assessments. After a couple of phone calls, she and I decided that to avoid a massive traffic jam of providers, she would conduct her assessment on Thanksgiving Day. I was impressed how everyone was willing to work on and around one of the biggest US holidays of the year. For us, every day had become basically the same, but these people all had families and lives outside of work. My only concern had to do with Dad’s diminishing strength and that he might not be able to exhibit progress during his assessments.
Shortly before noon, Michell helped Dad with some of the exercises prescribed by the occupational therapist and then she, Mom, and I helped him walk from the kitchen to the bedroom.
Kristen arrived at 2:15 P.M. for Dad’s speech therapy session, but he was sleeping. I had thought that we would not see any of the therapists until next week, but Kristen said that she was not part of Kathleen’s team, plus, she had just started treating Dad. To enable Dad time to wake up, she said that she would visit with her next patient and return in about 90 minutes. She returned shortly before 4:00 P.M., and she and Dad had a good session.
I worked only a half day today and ended the day around the time that Dad woke up. I retired to the kitchen and baked a couple of batches of biscotti. I needed to get my annual baking underway, but I felt guilty for baking something that Dad liked but could not eat. It didn’t help that the aroma of the biscotti wafted throughout the house.
Late in the day, Dr. Pfanner’s nurse called and said that Dad tested positive for CDiff. She and I discussed some antibiotics that he could take for it, but she would need to consult with the doctor and get back to me. Evidently, Dad’s G-tube was causing them to rethink which medication to prescribe. It was ironic that this infection was probably caused by Dad’s long-time usage of antibiotics, yet it would take another antibiotic to get rid of it. It was terrible that he had contracted this infection, but at least we knew why he had had this terrible diarrhea and that he would soon have medication to treat it.
I would need to leave town again for a day or two in early December. I had asked Michell if she would consider administering trach care and the meds while I was gone. I told her that Gale had performed these same tasks while I was gone a couple of weeks earlier. Michell had worked in nursing homes before she took a position with One On One Personal Homecare Services. In nursing homes, she would not have been permitted to perform either of these tasks. The rules of home care were at the discretion of the home care providers, namely me. I encouraged her to speak with Gale to see how she had managed. Truth be told, Michell had already performed tasks here that would have been off limits for her in a nursing home. Fortunately, Michell said that she would agree to be trained by me and give me her final decision after she had a chance to speak with Gale. During our nighttime routine, I showed her how to administer the trach care. She was nervous, and it would take a bit more practice with her, but I had to give her credit; I don’t know if I would have been willing to assume responsibility for the trach care had I been in her shoes.
Because he was feeling better, it seemed like a good time for me to take a break and change his trach. I set up my TV trays to do that. I still hated this weekly task, and I had a knot in my stomach throughout the procedure, but I was accomplishing it in less time.
About 30 minutes after Kristen left, Sally and Ray, dear friends of my parents (and me) stopped by for a visit. In about a month from now, they would move from Temple to New Braunfels. I saw Sally only a few times a year, but she is a delightful person and fabulous quilter and crafter of cards. Her husband, Ray, is also an interesting person who had been involved in the space program, another one of my interests. I could practically recite the dialog from the Apollo 13 movie, and Ray had been involved with this launch at NASA. I would miss them both after they moved from Temple. Dad came out for a few minutes to visit with them. The visit lacked our usual spontaneous conversation. They hadn’t seen Dad in almost a year, and I suspect that his appearance was a little shocking and was the proverbial elephant in the room. It didn’t help that Dad wasn’t feeling well.
Shortly after Sally and Ray left, I administered another Imodium pill into Dad’s feeding tube. Although he was feeling a bit better, he still was not better.
During his dialysis session, Dad had the nurse call the EMS dispatch office 15 minutes before his session was scheduled to end so that he wouldn’t have to wait any longer than necessary for his ride home. When Michell told me that they had removed 2500 ml from him, I was flabbergasted. When he left there, his dry weight was 138.28 lbs. He was probably dehydrated when he got there, and then they removed over two liters of fluid from him. I couldn’t help but question the judgment of the nurse who made the decision to remove almost twice the usual amount of fluid.
When Dad and Michell arrived home at 11:15 A.M., Dad was wiped out and was not feeling well. Within a few minutes after getting back on the bed, he was nauseous, and his trach collar was loose again. I tightened the collar, but he still didn’t feel well. I was becoming very concerned about him and called the Home Care nurse. Stephanie was working today and arrived shortly before 1:00 P.M. in response to our call. After checking Dad, she said that heard congestion in his lungs that she had not heard before. Also, his oxygen saturation never exceeded 93% while she was there. My concern for Dad escalated when Stephanie advised me to call 911.
Although Dad’s condition wasn’t any better, I was somewhat relieved by the EMTs’ assessment, and that we were able to avoid the emergency room. Dad was scheduled to see the gastroenterologist tomorrow, so I just needed to get him through the night. I called Sue, and she refilled Dad’s prescription of ondansetron (Zofran). Mom drove to the pharmacy as soon as I got off the phone with Sue. By the time that she returned home with the prescription, Dad was in a deep sleep. I eventually administered the Zofran in his feeding tube shortly before 5:00 P.M.
Stan left work early and drove from Houston to my parents’ home. He arrived shortly after 5:00 P.M. and just in time for happy hour. Shortly after 6:00 P.M., Dad went to his room and read the paper while we had dinner. After dinner, we played Oh Hell and hit the hay pretty early.
As Mom and I were driving to church, I told her that I had read the log book that the aides kept about Dad, so I knew about Dad’s fall yesterday. I was pretty irritated that she had decided to withhold this information from me. I was very invested in his care and recovery, and it disturbed me that my parents would choose to keep this information from me. She agreed that they would not withhold this type of information from me again and said that she would talk with Dad after lunch. However, we both hoped that there would be no next time.
While we were at church, Dad told Gale that he was tired and that he wanted to lie down. He also complained about some tightness and soreness in his back. Gale thought that he also seemed a little depressed about yesterday’s fall in the bedroom. The home-patient hospital beds had only two side rails, which did nothing to keep Dad in bed. At one point, I had used pipe cleaners to attach a couple dozen little bells to four chairs that we pushed up against the sides of Dad’s bed. He still might have been able to escape from the bed, but we hoped that the bells would wake at least one of us during an attempted escape. The chairs and bells had worked for about a week but were less effective as Dad got stronger. One side of the bed was partially obstructed because of the oxygen concentrator and nebulizer. While Dad napped, Gale moved the wheelchair to the other side of the bed and locked it in place, which made that bad boy practically impossible to move.
Fortunately, they didn’t have to wait too long after dialysis for a ride, and Dad and Gale were home by 12:15 P.M. He was pretty wiped out and wanted to take a nap. By 12:40 P.M., he was back on the bed, hooked up to the tube feed and moist air. I administered his trach care and a portion of his midday meds. I became distracted by some shiny object and forgot to administer his antibiotic. Less than five minutes after I left his room, he was sleeping. While he slept, I called Sue, our friend and nurse practitioner at the dialysis center, to see what else I could do for Dad. She said that I could safely give him two pills, the recommended dosage of Imodium.
While Gale and I were in Dad’s room running through his nighttime routine, Gale found a little scorpion on the floor near her bed. Gale was one of the most fearless women I knew, but she screamed like a little girl when she saw the critter. We had barely disposed of it when she encountered another one crawling on the bathroom floor toward the bedroom carpet. My parents had found scorpions in the house in the past, but I don’t recall ever seeing one, and tonight we saw two.
November 11. Dad had another good night. I might have heard him cough twice. At 7:45 A.M., I was between meetings and wanted to administer trach care and meds, but Dad was still in bed and didn’t want to get up. I told him that he was a lazy bones and that we’d have to make “
Before Stephanie’s car left the driveway, Brenda pulled up behind her for Dad’s physical therapy session. I didn’t watch the session, but from what I could hear, it seemed like she was working with him on transfers. I once heard her say that Dad got an A on something that he did, but not an A+. At the end of the session, she said that he got a gold star for the day. I had to laugh to myself as I wondered about the type of psychology that they employed to get him to cooperate. On her way out, Brenda stopped by my office and asked me about the rubber mat for the shower that I had agreed to get during our discussion on 
November 12. Shortly before 3:30 A.M., I heard Dad call for Gale to help him to find the urinal. I got up shortly after that and woke them. I watched as Gale handled all of the meds and routine trach care this morning—her last practice run before I left for Houston. Everything ran smoothly, and we were ready when the wheelchair van arrived at 5:50 A.M., some 20 minutes early.
Gale had her first solo run with the meds and trach care right after I left. Dad took a nap until 3:00 P.M. and was up for the remainder of the day. The three of them played cards, and Mom won again. Gale got Dad in bed by 8:00 P.M. and had no problem administering his night time meds and trach care.
Later in the morning, I received a call from Barbara at the Scott & White gastroenterology center. She said that her office had received a referral from Dr. Issac. She wanted to schedule an appointment for Dad to have his G-tube changed and to discuss 
Shortly before I was ready to log off for the day, Dad wanted to make his way into the office, which was no easy task. Although the door was wide enough for the wheelchair, the placement of a large desk just inside the door made wheelchair access impossible. Gale and I had to carefully transfer him from the stable wheelchair to the less stable 
I had assumed that Michell would replace Gale tomorrow, but I hadn’t heard anything from Becky, the owner of One on One Personal Home Care. I dashed off a quick email to her to confirm, and then returned to my day job.
Dad was still very tired and was ready for bed shortly after Mom was declared the Oh Hell winner of the night. By 7:30 P.M., he was in bed and ready for me to administer his meds and trach care. I sat with him while Gale prepared herself for bed, and then went upstairs to call Stan. To say the least, my updates to him about the daily events were varied from day to day. Because Dad went to bed early, I was also able to retire early and hoped to get an extra 30 minutes of sleep.
Michell arrived at 11:00 A.M. and conferred with Gale for a few minutes. It was nice to have a few weeks in a row with the same two aides. The transitions were easier for them and they were getting to know one another. Shortly after Gale left, Dad wanted to lie down for a short nap.
Dad and Michell were sound asleep when I woke them shortly after 4:00 A.M. We had an uneventful morning and Dad was picked up for dialysis shortly before 6:00 A.M. His dialysis session was finished before 11:00 A.M., and they were home before noon. After administering his midday meds and trach care, he was ready for a nap.
After dinner, Dad felt well enough to play a couple of games of Oh Hell: Dad won the first game and Mom won the second. We had two sets of criteria that determined how long we played cards: how Dad felt and whether he had dialysis the next day and how I felt and whether I had to work the next day. For the most part, I wanted to start Dad’s nighttime routine by 8:30 P.M. so that I could go to sleep by 9:30 P.M. A perfect night was one in which we all got six hours of uninterrupted sleep.
Today started out pretty well for Dad—in fact, it seemed practically transformative. He was able to pull himself up in the bed with one hand, and his transfers from the bed to the wheelchair were much better. When Tracy, the nurse, stopped by at 10:00 A.M., she said that he was doing well and that his bed sore seemed to be healing. Janet, the occupational therapist, arrived about 90 minutes later and put him through the paces with some arm and core exercises. On her way out, she said that she thought that Dad was progressing very well.
Last Sunday I had purchased a couple of pumpkins from the church. Tomorrow was Halloween, which was Gale’s favorite holiday. She usually spent the day with her granddaughters and was a little disappointed that she was missing this time with them. I had searched the internet for her to find some 
The storm passed through the area pretty fast, and it wasn’t raining at 6:15 A.M. when Dad and Gale were picked up for dialysis by the EMTs. Because it was Saturday, Mom and I ate breakfast together and tried to catch up on some chores around the house. While our lives were revolving around Dad, our household was like a computer. Mom acted as the operating system that managed our primary functions, like shopping, laundry, cleaning, and meal preparation. I kept up with Dad’s appointments, meds, supplies, and trach care. The aides handled Dad’s most basic needs and monitored his safety, and Stan helped with the yard and filled in all of the gaps. He also provided the extra dose of testosterone in the house, which Dad needed.
Mom and I searched the house for the pills, but we couldn’t find them anywhere. We surmised that we must have inadvertently thrown out that prescription when we threw away the bag from the pharmacy. This was our first major system failure since Dad had come home. Mom and I opted to forget about the antifungal—for now. It was less than 45 days ago that we were told that Dad would die from a fungus in his blood. I didn’t like the idea of forgoing this medication. Tomorrow was Sunday and I would see Sue, the dialysis nurse practitioner, at church. I hoped that she might have some suggestions on what we should do. Meanwhile, we felt as if the tricking had started already, and not the treating.
After our happy hour and a spaghetti dinner, I decided that we wanted a group Halloween photo, and I herded everyone outside to the front porch.
I needed to get back to Houston periodically for a day or two. I had contacted a couple of services to see if we could hire nurses to handle Dad’s trach care, but we needed someone three times a day, and I couldn’t figure out how to make it work logistically or financially. I also learned that it wasn’t every nurse that was trained to handle the duties of a respiratory therapist. I had approached Gale a couple of days earlier to see if she would be willing to administer the meds and trach care for Dad while I was gone. I planned to have everything set up and documented for her. Administering the medication was pretty simple with our pill organizer and pill crusher. The trach care was a trickier issue. I was pleased when she said that she would try administering the trach care a couple of times to see if she could handle it.
Shortly after lunch, a UPS driver rang our doorbell. He had come to pick up the “box” that contained the infant-sized 
While I was attending an online meeting at work, Michell, the new aide, arrived. Gale spent the next hour orienting her to the routine and her responsibilities. Before Gale left, she confided in me that she thought that she smelled cigarette smoke on Michell’s hands. To address her suspicions, Gale stressed to Michell that we had oxygen in the house and that smoke particles were a hazard for Dad because of his trach.
Dr. Issac started the meeting by asking if we needed anything. Without any hesitation, I told him that I needed him to be Dad’s PCP. Dad was running out of several medications that required the authorization of a physician. I said Dad also needed referrals to see specialists. I told him that although I was an MBRT, I would really like Dad to see a pulmonologist. The room became quiet, people looked at one other for a moment, and the doctor gave me a questioning look. I responded by saying, “make-believe respiratory therapist.” He laughed. In addition to explaining the need for a pulmonologist, I told them about our difficulty in getting a referral to a wound care specialist and how I had had to order the Y extensions from Amazon.com.
I think that our family happy hour was a new experience for Michell. She didn’t drink, but she still joined us and we found that this time was perfect for getting better acquainted with the aides. Although Dad could not drink with us, he still ensured that we kept the bar refrigerator stocked with the beverages that the aides like to drink.
The nurses were ready for Dad when he arrived, so his dialysis session started at 6:30 A.M. Two hours later, his 
When he woke a couple of hours later, he was in a much better mood. Because Dad could not take anything by mouth, all of his meds were crushed, mixed with water, drawn into a large syringe, and inserted into his G-tube, directly into his stomach. When I reached for the Y extension line that connected the G-tube with the tube feed line and provided the input valves to the G-tube, a loose end came up in my hand. I didn’t know how long that it had been disconnected from the G-tube, but Dad and the bed were a sticky mess. It was as if we had thrown a couple of milkshakes in bed with him.
Shortly after Dad’s return home from the CCH a few weeks earlier, Gale and I were careful about the way in which we handled the Y extension because we didn’t know how long the tubing or connectors would last. Just a few days ago, we had asked the nurse if she could acquire more of them for us. Fortunately, she was able to find one and it was still in its packaging. I planned to bring it with me to the hospital later today and was determined that we would not come home until it was securely inserted in Dad’s G-tube.
As I explained the problem, Dr. Klovenski enlisted the assistance of a medical student. This case was a little out of the ordinary and presented them with a problem-solving exercise that they never experienced in medical school. After gathering a variety of 
In addition to the lightheartedness of the visit, this trip to the hospital felt different for me too. From the moment that I arrived, everyone seemed to listen to what I had to say. I felt as if my IQ had suddenly increased. While Dad and I were waiting for the ambulance to take us home, one of the staff members asked me where I worked, and then it dawned on me. I had worn my navy scrubs: the color worn by RNs. Mom always told me to dress for success. I guess first impressions are important.
While I had her on the phone, I told her that I also needed to order some Corpak Y Extensions to connect the tube feed tubing to the G-tube. She told me that she could not provide this item without an order from Dad’s primary care physician. I told her to forget it and that I would just buy them myself. She proceeded to lecture me about how I couldn’t just walk into a Walgreens and buy these supplies. During our call, I had my iPad sitting next to me, which I reached for during my lecture. She required a couple of minutes to complete her paperwork for the exchange order. Before our call had ended, I had placed an order with 
After lunch, Dad had Mom and Gale take him outside to check on the hoses in the backyard. My parents’ acre lot had quite a few young trees. Dad had set up permanent irrigation to some of the trees, but his system required that some hoses be moved among the trees. Diane had been his ready assistant a few days ago, and now it was Gale’s turn. Fortunately, Gale loved being outdoors.
In addition to being concerned about all of the time that Dad was off of the humidified air, I was also concerned about the considerable amount of time he spent disconnected from his tube feed. The tube feed was available to him only in his room because his wheelchair had no IV pole to which to attach the Kangaroo pump that operated the feed. I suspected that he was receiving less than half of the protein and other nutrients that he needed. If I could attach the Kangaroo pump to the wheelchair, then he could receive nutrition all the time as he moved around the house, property, and elsewhere, except during dialysis. When I had called 
During the past few days, I had been discovering some of the flaws in the homecare system and Medicare. When the nurse encouraged us to take Dad to a wound care specialist, I called the nurse practitioner at the CCH for the referral and was told that Dad was no longer their patient and that we would have to get all of our referrals from his primary care physician (PCP). Dad had been hospitalized since May and hadn’t seen his PCP in almost two years. As a matter of fact, we had to cancel an appointment with her during his hospitalization. When I called the office of Dr. Sarla Patil, his PCP, and explained our predicament to her nurse, she said that the doctor could not provide any referrals or refill his prescriptions unless he came to her office. She went on to say that had Dr. Patil been the referring physician for homecare, then they could help, which was a nonhelpful and ridiculous comment. When I explained that he wasn’t ambulatory, she apologized and said that there was nothing that she could do. In desperation, I called the office of the doctor who had saved his life, Dr. Randall Smith. I spoke with his nurse, Christine, and explained Dad’s 
October 15. At 1:30 A.M., I was awakened by the sound of coughing coming through the baby monitor. I kept hoping that Dad would use the 
trach bib moistened with sterile water to provide some moisture to his lungs, he no longer was deprived of tube feed when he left the bedroom. Dad had to be more careful as he navigated the hallways to ensure that the pump didn’t hit the wall or knock photographs off of the wall.
Tale of Two Parents 